AFC Bromley
Formed in 1996 from a long established Sunday club Dennyboy ran. Cherry -picked the players for their decent attitude to playing football.
Those of you involved in Sunday football will understand that statement. Players turning up stinking of booze and chemicals and inside a few minutes are either fearfully ill on side lines or hurling themselves into ridiculous tackles and wanting to tear out the lungs of anyone not embracing their mantra of "Let’s make 'em f****** 'ave it!" Spittle dribbling off their chins
All AFC players from concept to date are told that if they want to fight, kick lumps out of opponents or give refs grief (this last one has been severely tested lately) to go and find another club. This has enabled the Club to be one the most highly respected in Bromley and District League and indeed one of the longest serving with an un-rivaled disciplinary record with less than 5 players sent off in 14 years!
Three of the original team still pull on a shirt to, it must be said varying degrees of élan and effectiveness - they are Gary G (now player/manager) Vernon and Eamsey. Gary is my son and of course he takes all free kicks, corners, penalties, throw-ins, toss-up his favourite shirt number and of course his own separate shower and post match meal and has been M.O.M 347 times! The last part is actually not true.
He got m.o.m. once from me in 1990. He blitzed a quality midfield of the opposition almost on his own and scored a hat-trick, which won us the game, so I gritted my teeth and gave him M.O.M.
Vernon has played for Dennyboy for 27 years! He is still probably quicker than all of the regular squad we have now.
Eamesy first game was 16/10/1996 as our keeper and didn’t inspire confidence with the statement " I haven’t played for a while and I can’t kick a ball to save my life”. He survived. To teach him how to take a goal kick I felt-tipped my face on to the ball and said " Imagine that is me". To this day he has my picture in his head when he strikes the ball, don’t know how to feel about that one!
Success has been limited in the trophy department with only 3 cups, 2 winners and a runner-up the most recent was a great cup final win at Beckenham Town earlier this year.
We have had some memorable matches over the years that will last for ever i.e. we played a team called Unity and we could only muster 9 men that day and from start to finish out-played them and won 1-0 (Gary scored the only goal and no M.O.M) no subs for the boys that day!
More recently a game in the Kent cup. We were 2-0 down in twenty mins and quite frankly awful, but we got it together and leveled the tie to take it to extra time and ultimately win 4-3. Nothing extraordinary here you might think-wrong. We were subjected to some brutal treatment by opposition and downright blatant one-eyed refereeing, a man whose job it is to see fair play and I think was highly intimidated as were my team, but my boys wouldn’t lie down and came out with a victory which will still be remembered long after me.
Therein lies the clue to this Club. The joy and pride I felt after that game is worth more than trophies, it proves that if you have right people in your club you can be successful. Success of course is relative- the success of this club is in its longevity and the quality of personnel it allows to pull on a shirt. I know that the current squad has everything it takes to take AFC Bromley forward, hopefully to promotion this year.
My sincere thanks to Chris, Mr. Dangerous, Noodles and Glenn for doing stuff this season, above and beyond the call of duty.
Your proud chairman
Dennyboy. (Dennis Gordon, 2010)
